Positive Animal Caregivers: The Other Story

Once in a while, I would invite my friends to accompany me to animal shelters.

“Oh, but it is too depressing,” many of them would say. “I don’t think I can handle it.”

They are not the only ones. A search on the internet reveals similar sentiments. One Quora user asked: Is it sad or depressing to volunteer at an animal shelter? Another Reddit user posted: Feeling super sad after visiting a shelter for the first time.

I have visited tens of animal shelters across three continents, and volunteered at half a dozen. Is it really that depressing?

Indeed, I have walked into dark shelters with barely a hint of natural light, where dogs looked up towards tiny, barred windows. I felt like a prisoner myself while cleaning the kennels. 

I have walked into shelters where a rush of urine greeted me as soon as I opened the door. I have walked into sanctuaries where the sheer number of dogs occupying the same plot of land overwhelmed me, as well as warehouses where the barking of every single dog echoed off the walls. (Earplugs required.)

I don't blame the shelters. I have struggled with the same trade-offs.

If we could just halve the size of the kennels, we could rescue twice as many abused pets. If we could do the cleaning with two staff instead of three, the savings might fund another round of vaccines.

I wasn't choosing between a right and a wrong answer. It was a choice between today and tomorrow. Between rescuing one more animal and maintaining the shelter's condition.

Scarce resources are only part of the story, though.

Once, I walked into a shelter backed by multimillionaires, with infrastructure built like a film set, only to walk out wondering if this was somewhere I would want to spend my precious weekends.

Even in the digital world, animal shelters constantly fill my social media feed with cries of suffering. Risks of euthanasia. Urgent fundraising appeals.

One fundraiser after another.

And I could no longer keep up.

“The world needs to know that animals are suffering,” they say.

They are right. People need to know that animals are suffering. Otherwise, why would they care enough to help?

And yet, when I walked out of those shelters or closed my social media apps, what stayed with me wasn't just sadness. It was helplessness.

I wanted to help. I just wasn't sure I could.

After so many shelter visits, I had begun to accept that this was simply what visiting a shelter felt like.

So I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I found an exception.

My friend and I visited a small, unassuming house in a residential area.

We opened the gate to find 30 dogs. Mostly friendly, looking to be petted, with very little barking. The courtyard was well maintained, shades were plentiful, and the lawn would have looked right at home in an English garden.

We hung around playing with the dogs, sipping our coffee.

Eventually, we made our way to the small live-in quarters for the caregivers. We sat on the floor, which was clean and free of any hint of urine. Dogs leaned against the couple, doing little to hide their affection.

The caregivers clearly knew each dog. They told us their stories.

None were easy.

They told us about bribing a factory guard to rescue two siblings whose brothers had already been eaten. They told us about stealing a dog from his abusive owner.

Yet the stories did not end with the suffering.

They talked about rehabilitation. Many of the dogs had received treatment, funded by individuals whose names were hand-written on the wall. As we sat there, some dogs received physiotherapy.

“I believe that Tommy will find a good home,” one of the caregivers said. “He will be so spoiled that he won’t remember anything about his previous owner.”

Tommy was the dog they had rescued from the abusive owner.

I have no doubt that crises also unfold daily at that shelter. Rescues. Fluctuating finances. Dogs getting into fights. People dropping off boxes of puppies.

The caregivers could have stopped at the suffering.

But they didn't.

They talked about how people had helped. They shared their hopes.

We stayed for hours.

Yet I walked out of the gate feeling recharged.

I wonder if, in animal welfare, we are too focused on telling people about our crises.

We believe in transparency. We believe in appealing for help. We believe that once animal lovers understand our struggles, surely they will help.

But perhaps we also need to convince people that this is a problem that can be solved. 

For me, seeing the scale of the problem isn't what made me want to return.

Seeing what people were doing about it did.

The shelter I will return to is the one that made me believe that the suffering I was seeing did not have to be the end of the story.

If this newsletter has been useful to you, the best way to help it grow is to pass it to one person who'd connect with it — a colleague, a fellow volunteer, anyone doing this work who might want to feel less alone in it.

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Small acts of care often look ordinary until someone pauses long enough to notice them. This week, a few things worth noticing:

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Thanks for spending part of your day with me and the rest of the Positive Animal Caregivers Club. Take care of yourself this week.

– Philip